


The Day Ares Stopped Believing in Reincarnation

by Leni



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-series. Xena/Ares (sorta), and Aphrodite totally stole the show. (Some death and mayhem....)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Day Ares Stopped Believing in Reincarnation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the_windowbird at [Christmas Drabbling 2010](http://community.livejournal.com/kitteninthedark/168083.html).

"G'morning, sugar daddy," she was chirping when he opened his eyes, sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed.

Ares cocked an eyebrow at her behavior, but inwardly wondered which of the Fate sisters he'd offended to get himself landed in this ridiculous situation. "I've told you not to call me that."

The girl poked her tongue out. "You told me I could do whatever I wanted on my eighteenth birthday." When he was about to protest such outrageous lie, she tilted her head and grinned, "You aren't old enough to forget stuff. Last year? Big fight over me getting in a fight? I yelled that I'd run away, you threatened to lock me away if I ever tried. I said I was old enough to make my own choices, you growled 'Not until you're eighteen'," she deepened her voice in a hopeless effort to imitate his. "Guess what, today's the day."

"You running away?"

"Don't sound so hopeful," she chastised. Quick as a lioness, she stretched out next to him. Up close, Ares couldn't help but study her face, compare her to the woman he still remembered, and how she was growing to resemble her. But now he also compared to the girl he'd met three years ago, and how different she already was. He cupped her cheek, and she moved into the touch. "I may have changed my plans," she confessed, meeting his eye boldly.

But the dark blush accompanying her attempt at seduction had him throwing away the covers and sitting up.

"I don't get you," she hissed, touching her fingers to the spot where his had just been. The ends of her hair, jet black and growing out from the short bob she'd favored in junior year, were impatiently waved away. "You want _me_. You know you do. And now you don't even have whatever weak excuse my age was supposed to be!"

If this were the revenge of some god, Ares hoped he'd razed his temples, slaughtered every follower, and left him chained to the inside of a volcano in order to deserve this. He'd never expected that any version of Xena would grow to want him, had never dreamed to hold back if such a thing happened.

"Leave me alone," he ordered.

Her eyes narrowed, and for the first time since they'd met, Ares thought he saw a hint of hate in her expression. "Whatever," she bit out, jumping out of bed and across the room. "For all I care, you can go and find yourself some other little girl to play games with."

The door hadn't finished closing behind her when he vanished in a crackling show of blue lights. In a faraway mountain, a pack of wolves scurried away when they sensed the arrival of an immortal - and a fuming one at that. Rocks nearby melted in his anger, and a tree groaned in agony as the energy blast hit its trunk. "I did everything right this time," he screamed into nowhere, letting the words echo and come back at him. His lips curled in derision at the despair the words had adopted, and then his hands shot out to send two more blasts. His breath was loud in his own ears, and at the corner of his eyes, black hair and devious blue eyes invited him to let go.

"Maybe that was the problem," he mused, watching the smoke spiral out of what'd been a healthy cluster of bushes seconds ago. "Maybe I should have made her hate me again - I knew how to handle that." He laughed at his own understatement, bringing back each instance where he'd dealt with Xena's anger. When Ares had set out to look for her, he'd meant to break the cycle - not create a new one. He was clueless as to his next step, and that thought made him fill with rage again.

A terrified howl broke him out of the reverie; Ares glanced around to find the ruins of the clearing. A chorus of yips rose in volume out of sight, and he sighed before he disappeared again.

Aunt Demeter would give him an earful, adding trouble when she had her earth-healing hands busy on a worldwide scale; but after the tonguelashing he'd received from a mortal teenager first thing in the day, a nagging goddess didn't seem too bad.

 

 _Two hundred years ago._

When he had finally escaped his prison of stone and old magic, his foremost goal had been revenge; he'd burned with anger, some of it at himself for falling for such obvious bait. Only to find out that those who'd locked him away had long ago burned to ashes and blown in the wind. It took a decade until he had been able to look at the seal that had both brought him to his jail and sealed the door. The broken Chakram had reminded him of a particular face, a mane of dark hair, blue eyes piercing him with varying degrees of hate and pity, and calloused hands that had both fought and held him.

Xena.

But Xena had been no more, couldn't have been. Until he'd remembered flashes of her in the caves that had held him. A woman with her body and strength, and only half the memories. That woman hadn't remembered growing fond of him, had no recollection of the sacrifices he'd made in her name. But, and Ares grinned, in those minutes where her despise had shone undiluted by conflicted feelings, how had that woman resembled the Xena on whom he'd first fixed his attention all those centuries ago!

But even that woman had died by the time he found her, and maybe that'd worked in his best interest. She would have remembered him at his worst - when he'd have gladly sent her to Hades's dominion because of her continued refusal to follow him. Centuries ago, it had taken losing his godhood to atone for his deeds, and even then, Xena had never trusted him. Her copy wouldn't trust him either, and he wasn't about to rejoin humanity just to gain her favor.

He would have to find her again, start from scratch. No matter how much she resisted, Ares knew that in the end he would prevail.

 

 _Fifty years ago_

"I remember this tune," Aphrodite tittered once, still beautiful if more sedatedly dressed. She'd found him soon after the wards around him broke, and seemed delighted in his company after centuries of languishing with their diminished family. "It's even worse than when that woman was alive!"

He'd laughed at that, not caring to dissemble his intentions. Immortality had a high price, and in a world where both love and war had been taken over by humans, they needed something to fill the void. "How can it be worse?"

Aphrodite's eyes had grown distant, her laughter muted, as if she also remembered her years of mourning. "True. You lost everything once already. They wouldn't have caught you without using your memories of her as bait," she reminded him. "I still wonder if you would have been so intent on obtaining that ambrosia had news of her death not reached you; if you wouldn't have waited for her to spend a human lifetime together."

He shuddered at the thought, but couldn't bring himself to deny the charges. "But she did die, and I did escape that blasted cave with all my powers intact." A ball of energy grew on his palm as demonstration. "And there's nobody who would dream to set a trap for us now, 'Dite."

"Nobody who believes in us, you mean." She nodded at the bright power he'd channeled, knowing as well as he did that it paled to the power they'd wielded during their reign over Greece.

"So what if humans have grown even more stupid," he'd disregarded her comment. "Even the weakest of us is a thousand times more powerful."

Aphrodite had smiled at his enthusiasm. "Not unless you count your warrior. Take care not to awaken her memory, brother," she cautioned, but she sounded amused - an older sister diverted by the antics of her toddling sibling. "Which you will do; you won't be able to help yourself. You are obsessed, Ares."

"And you are lonely," he threw back, and regretted it when her face fell. He kept forgetting that this wasn't the Goddess of Love with whom he'd often locked in minor spats, or grinned irreverently across enemy lines in some human battleground they'd designed on some whim or another. She had no husband to pamper her anymore, no acolytes and temples to revere her, and her only son had fled far from the ludicrous human attempts to understand romance. "Come with me," he proposed, unsure whether it was pity or love that moved him, and aware that the two emotions were inseparable in his mind. That was the lesson he'd learned at Xena's hands as a human. "I'll travel the world . It will be easier with someone who knows what it has devolved into."

Her smile reappeared. "Have you grown soft, Ares?"

"I've grown bored," he admitted. "And say what you will, but you must remember that Xena was everything but boring."

Her eyes lightened with concealed interest, but the goddess who'd fanned lust in thousands of hearts must play hard to get. "She was quite exceptional - for a human," she allowed, playing with the lacy belt around her waist.

"Come, Aphrodite." He held out his hand. "Let's travel the world, play whatever games we need to, to amuse ourselves until Xena shows up. Why should we wait for silly rituals and sacrifices, why fade away in wrecked temples? Humans are so susceptible; you don't need their faith to have them kneeling at your feet." Her smile turned impish, as she pictured the future Ares was painting. "We are Love and War," he finished with a wink, "We belong together, sister."

Aphrodite was laughing as she took his hand, once again the giddy goddess he'd been content to spoil or antagonize, depending on the currents of their flighty relationship. "I missed you, Ares," she said truthfully. "Nobody organizes chaos quite like you. And when we find your warrior, I'll be there to help you." She smiled in anticipation. "If she's anything like before, the task will keep me entertained for decades, and amused for at least a millennium afterwards."

Ares smiled along. "What are we waiting for, then?"

 

 _Thirty-four years ago._

They had first found a woman in a coma, caught in a traffic accident three months before Aphrodite saw her in an old newspaper. Her skin was ashen, devoid of life; her closed eyes gave no hint of emotion, and the emptiness echoed through her slack face and defenseless body.

"Is there no hope?" Ares had demanded of the doctor, glowering down at him in the manner from which warriors and kings had once cowered. He felt himself edging towards a fury that used to sweep through kingdoms and leave destruction behind, how could he not? Everything she had once been, every drop of potential in that body, wasted and being mocked by the beeping of the machines around her. "Answer me!"

Pesky regularities, such as keeping information to family only, crumpled as the man paged through his patient's history. Easy feat, as the woman had no close family keeping track of her condition; only one other friend who visited with dwindling regularity, and the petite blonde was nowhere near as intimidating as this stranger. The doctor cleared his throat several times before answered, and looked around as if a miraculous exit would pop up between him and the man who towered menacingly over him. "I - I'm s-sorry."

That night, Aphrodite had scurried away, and Ares hadn't stopped her.

"It's for the best," he said at her return. "Makes it easier to search for the next one."

Aphrodite's eyes had misted over, but she'd nodded. "I didn't do it for you."

"Thank you, anyway."

 

 _Nineteen years ago._

"She's so lost," Aphrodite whispered, untangling the strands of dark hair with a dexterity that announced she'd once mothered a child. The girl in the hospital bed didn't react at their presence, except to stir lightly when her hair was pulled. "What did she do, Ares? Which god did she upset that this curse would fall upon her?"

And a curse it had to be. Again, they found her alone, her family struck by tragedy. "Who knows?" Ares looked down at the small figure, strangely comforted by the rosier color in her cheeks. The doctor was at least hopeful this time, if fearful about post-surgery infection. "Greece was too small for her; maybe it always was. And she had this way about making one forget she was human and inconsequential - made one wish for her the kind of calamity we only inflict on our equals."

"Maybe it's the price for her own immortality," Aphrodite mused aloud, as puzzled now as the first time he told her that humans were born time and again in their old skins.

"Maybe." He floated onto the other side of the bed, putting his right hand next to the little girl's and gasping when chubby fingers curled around his wrist. He looked up to find eerily familiar blue eyes glancing up at him, a hint of distrust in her young gaze.

"Hello, little warrior," his sister cooed, drawing her attention.

The girl's features softened, and a small smile made its appearance. "Are you angels?"

Aphrodite frowned, as she was slightly familiarized with the concept, and then only because of tales where winged warriors were sent ahead of their master to make way for him and his followers. Ares, in his brief stint in humanity, had heard about the peaceful, doting creatures that guarded a child's sleep if they behaved. "Not really," he told the girl, "But we're here for you."

"You'll take me with Mommy and Daddy?"

There was no fear in the voice, and this proof that she was who he'd been looking for helped Ares relax. "No, princess. We won't."

"Oh." She tried to move, but the cast around her left arm held her down. After a confused blink, she fell back into her pillows, blue eyes wide and bright under the single lamp at her bedside. "The nurse thinks I'm afraid of the dark," she told them sheepishly, concerned they'd think her a baby, "but that's not why I can't sleep." Her lips formed into a wavy pout, and a fat tear ran down her cheek. "There's nobody to read me a story now," she blurted out, looking between him and Aphrodite hopefully.

Ares materialized a cushioned chair, enjoying the child's delighted gasp. "I know a story," he confided, moving onto the chair without letting go of her hand. He told her stories about a beautiful, brave warrior for twenty-two days. On the twenty-third, he found the room empty and a nurse crying softly as she made the bed.

The next week, Aphrodite finally found him in the remains of one of his old temples, one where Xena had defeated him so soundly that he'd had no choice but follow her for revenge. "You shouldn't have burned the whole place down," his sister scolded him. "She wouldn't have liked it."

He'd shrugged his shoulders.

"Are you giving up?"

Ares had sent one decrepit wall flying into the air. "What if there's no curse, 'Dite? What if she is doing all she can do to avoid me? Escaping back into death so I can't see her?" He startled when Aphrodite laughed. "Stop that!"

"I will not." Her blond hair floated around her as she drew onto her power to raise a shield. Ares braced himself. "You fool. You deserter," she flung at him. "Avoid you? Escape? Have you forgotten this warrior you claim to love?"

"I've never -"

Her laughter grew incisive. "Remember where my power lies, brother. I haven't grown as weary of this mad race as you seem to have. You love her, and whatever realm her soul chooses to inhabit in death could not cleanse her from the habit of clashing against you. She will come," she told him in the tone of the one who'd brought Helena to Paris, blind to details like fate or ruin in the wake of a perfect match. "And when she does, you will give her the chance to love you back."

"And if she doesn't?"

The old temple glowed gold for several moments, while Aphrodite raised her hand as if taking an oath. "She will."

For once, Ares bowed to love's wisdom.

Twenty years later, he wondered if Aphrodite's words hadn't been the real curse on his and Xena's next encounter.

 

 _Three years ago._

From the moment he decided to find her, to the moment Alynn found him, six human generations had passed. A teenage girl, her features hardened by the life she'd led in her fifteen years, and yet so innocent when he compared it to the face of his memories. Alynn hadn't remembered him, and nothing he'd done had triggered her past lives into the present, not even when she'd stared at him suspiciously when he offered free shelter, or when she'd bristled when he mocked her dyed blond hair with pale blue streaks.

It had taken a year for the girl to stop watching him for a sign of betrayal, so sure that it had been the temptation of her body which had prompted him to single her out, and baffled that months had passed and he hadn't taken advantage. How could Ares explain that, yes, her body had been a key argument in her favor, and yet the thought of bedding her without her knowing whom she was welcoming into her body was the emptiest victory he could imagine?

No, Ares could not explain.

But Alynn demanded answers anyway. "You really won't sleep with me?" she finally asked one night, glaring at him over their dinner plates.

Ares had given a tired sigh, though a part of him was amused that no matter how removed from the original she was, Alynn was still willing to tackle a matter heads on. Given the look in her eyes, Ares counted himself lucky that the only sharp instrument at hand were the butter knives. Alynn had no interest in 'medieval' weaponry, but a quick session together had proved that she was a natural; she'd chalked it up to her time in the street, but Ares knew that a couple muggings at the end of a knife didn't make a novice come close to disarming the God of War. "Am I to assume you want that to change?"

"You don't like women," she assumed instead, looking surprised but not unwilling to take that as an excuse for his disinterest.

He didn't laugh. He bellowed, his hands thumped so hard against the table that their drinks spilt when they shook along. Some days, Alynn made him wish he could have met Xena in her younger years - had she been as conceited as her reincarnation, or had the obvious interest of an older, world-savvy man made her that way? He rose up and patted her hair; it was red-brown this month, and with Aphrodite declaring it her best look so far, there was no chance she'd change it anytime soon. She gave him a look that, once upon a time, would have been clear warning that condescendence could cost him a hand. "Wrong, princess," he said, tugging on her hair before letting it go.

Her nose scrunched. "Don't call me that," she sulked, arms crossed and all, "I'm not a little girl anymore. Even Aunt 'Dite says so."

"Perhaps," he allowed, feeling generous as she had indeed made a leap from girlhood to maturity, by confronting him. "But you can be so much more."

She wrenched her head away, jumping to her feet so hastily that the chair wobbled behind her until Ares stayed its dance. "I don't know who you want me to be," she bit out, whirling around and making her hair fly wild around her. For a moment, despite the incongruence of coloring, there was a glimpse of who she had once been. But it was only a glimpse, as Alynn deflated rapidly and her eyes filled with tears. "But I'm not her. You hear me? I'm _not_." Ares gave her extra points for not running away. Her walk was slow, head held high and tears kept at bay. But at the doorstep, she paused and turned toward him. "And you know what, you sick bastard? I don't think I _want_ to be anybody who isn't myself."

Behind her back, his grin had grown wide. "Hello, Xena," he'd murmured when her door slammed shut. "Welcome back."

 

 _Present day._

When he returned to the house, Ares was glad to hear the newest hit of modern music blasting from her room.

"You don't want to go upstairs," Aphrodite told him, grabbing his arm and leading him instead to the library. "Cousin Persephone is mad at you, for upsetting Auntie. You know how she makes Persephone's life impossible; I think Auntie still blames her for falling for Uncle's trick," she giggled. "I hope she never finds out where Hades got the idea."

"I think she knows," Ares followed her suit. "You _were_ his favorite niece, after all." If their cousin had sequestered herself with Alynn, they could count on the wrath of teenage rebelliousness for dinner. It seemed that Persephone's revenge against the cause of her widowhood was to upset her reincarnation's life

Aphrodite sighed. "Spring was never the same after he passed. Persephone doesn't put the same interest in it anymore."

Every wall in the room was covered by high shelves. Alynn had often proposed that they converted it into a games room, perfect for inviting her school friends over and provoking their envy - and Ares had laughed at her bold declaration, not surprised at her need to excel at everything and lord the fact over her contemporaries, be it seasoned warriors or wide-eyed teenagers. To her disappointment, not even Aphrodite would side with her; understandable, considering that most of the 'musty old things' that peppered the room were his sister's favorite antiques, some dating further back than the founding of Greece.

When the library door closed behind them, Ares loosened himself and arched an eyebrow. "You're stalling, 'Dite."

"Alynn loves you," she stated, point blank.

The room wasn't long enough to pace along it, but Ares gave it his best effort. "So it seems," he said at last, trying not to look at the row of photographs they'd taken last year, standing proudly in front of Shakespeare's works - and with more personal value than the original prints from the Bard.

"She doesn't even know your name."

He chuckled. "She's fond of inventing new ones for my use."

Aphrodite ignored his comment, and sank down on the couch. "It's unfair to her. You were supposed to take her when she allowed it, not bait her and leave her with nothing."

"She is still a child!" He pointed in the direction of her bedroom, from where the screeches of some singer poured through walls and shut doors. "She behaves like one."

"So she is stubborn, willful, and doesn't run away from you when you're growling at her." Aphrodite rolled her eyes. "If you had given her a sword instead of a stereo, perhaps you'd be happier right now!"

"Or sliced into thin ribbons."

His sister chuckled at the visual. "You are immortal, brother." Then she sobered, "and she is not. Will you really let history repeat itself?"

"History is not repeating," he sighed. "That's the problem."

Alynn wasn't Xena. Although their features were the same, Alynn was high-spirited where Xena had been guarded, Alynn had taken the opportunity he'd given her with both hands where Xena would have insisted she could take care of herself. He'd left behind a seasoned warrior, and found a street urchin two millennia later.

With Xena, one in a million was a number he'd resigned himself to.

With Alynn, he could be the only one.

"The girl has you running in circles and getting nowhere," Aphrodite pointed out in a soft voice, "That much has stayed the same. What are you waiting for, Ares?"

He looked away from his sister, and focused on the blue eyes that laughed up at him from the closest picture. For centuries, he had mulled on the hatred that those same eyes had aimed at him, lessened in the end to distrust mixed with fondness. Xena would never have looked at him with such abandonment, and it didn't feel right to let any version of her do it in her stead. "I don't know."

Aphrodite huffed.

"I don't know!"

"Don't you dare set this house on fire," she warned, and only then he noticed the blue flames in his hands. "If you don't know, you blind fool, I'll tell you. You're waiting for her to remember you. Remember and reject you. Only once she's thrown you out of her life, as your warrior did before, will you be sure that she's back."

"Xena would have loved me in the end," he tried a roguish grin. "I know that."

Aphrodite lifted a shoulder. "Perhaps. But only she could confirm it, and from what you told me, only mortal peril would bring her back. _Her_ , Ares, and Alynn would be lost. It could be arranged, to have someone threaten her…." Her voice steeled for her next question: "Is that what you want?"

He didn't answer.

"Say Xena's ghost comes but leaves anyway - and I really can't see her stealing someone else's life. All that goodness -" She heaved a sigh. "Anyway, Alynn would still know that something is amiss. Her heart wouldn't lie to her, brother - I know that as you know how to provoke a fight. She'd _know_ herself second best, for the rest of her life." She paused, to let him think it over; then she asked again, "Is that what you want?"

"…No."

"You can leave her." Aphrodite hid a smile at his automatic headshake. "Or you can learn to love her, this pampered version you have created."

He laughed. "Are those my only options?"

"You can get rid of her and start again," she said, unknowingly echoing the idea he'd considered earlier. This time, the thought made him sick. "But you won't."

"When did you get to know me so well, 'Dite?" he asked, indeed amused at the confidence in her sister's statement.

Aphrodite smiled. "Alynn likes to share her insights with her aunt," she told him. "She's a smart one. I remember liking that about her."

"You liked more the way she kept showing me up," Ares said, eager to change the subject. There was no answer. Not now. "Be happy, 'Dite. She'll give me hell tonight. By now, our cousin will have convinced her that she deserves no less than the moon and the stars for her birthday." He drew his eyebrows together, already thinking of a way to dismiss Persephone before dinner time. "Persephone loves putting us at odds."

"No family is perfect." Aphrodite rose to her feet and covered the few steps towards him. She searched his eyes and sighed softly, and Ares knew that she would press the issue. Such was the way of love. "Let Alynn love you, brother. Give her the chance to prove herself."

"And if I never love her back, not like before?" he asked, feeling they'd fallen back in an old conversation, except his situation had been reversed.

Aphrodite raised her hand again, and this time Ares hoped it would prove a blessing. "You won't." At his shocked look, she smiled and added, "It will be better, brother. I promise you that."

Love's wisdom was capricious at best, Ares knew that. But once more he nodded and hoped for the best.

 

The End  
29/12/10


End file.
